Waterline

by Ross Raisin

  ‘Ye don’t always get the beans, know. Serious, ye don’t.’

  A bloody Weegie. Unfuckingbelievable. Mick doesn’t look up. He resolves no to let a word slip out of his mouth.

  ‘See the bacon is always – ye always get the bacon but the beans is hit and miss. Believe that? I’m telling them, get more beans. Beans is cheaper for them and it fills ye up the better.’

  Mick nods, picking up his plate and standing.

  He puts the plate and cutlery into the buckets on the table. How can somebody like that look at him and think – aye, there’s a guy that’s on my wavelength? No point dwelling on it but. Probably a headbanger. He goes warily over to his bag and then makes for the door, getting out the building before any other nutter can clamp onto him.

  Chapter 25

  A man in a suit is sitting on a bench. A short way down the towpath, an elderly Mediterranean-looking woman in a huge fur coat is waiting for her small dog to finish shitting beside a tree. The man knows full well that she is not going to clear it up. He knows it, and it is irritating the hell out of him that he knows it, but still he cannot move his eyes away: the dog squeezes out the final pellet, and he watches in silent fury as the woman slowly wanders off in her enormous coat.

  The man turns back to his lunch, but that just serves to annoy him further, so he looks up at Battersea Power Station instead – something reassuring about the size and solidness of it. He could kill for a sausage sandwich right now. That was his old routine: after the first couple of weeks last summer when all the new advisers would go together from the Department for Business building to the pub for lunch, he had taken to walking down to the river and buying a sausage sandwich en route. He looks down miserably now at his Boots meal deal: the juice drained in one go, sandwich vanished, colourful delights of the fruit salad still to come. The homeless man is there again. He is sat three benches further up, and there’s little chance he could have seen him but even so the memory of yesterday returns, and he experiences for a moment the same sense of panic he had felt as the man had approached him, the crazed look on his face. He seems to be keeping to himself today, ignoring the passers-by and just glaring out at the river in what appears to be the same dirty brown jacket and torn trousers as he had on before.

  He attempts the fruit salad. It is dry and soapy; he compresses a piece in his mouth but no moisture comes out. He knows that it is almost time to return to the office, but as soon as he thinks about leaving the bench he starts to become a little nauseous. There is a pre-meet at one to brief the Idiot for his afternoon meetings. No doubt the others will be prepared: they’ll have been planning over lunch, devising a briefing strategy. They will have choreographed their spiel; and when, at the end of the brief, the Idiot turns to him and asks if he has any input, he will look every inch the pointless fat fool as he replies that he believes it’s all been covered. In his whole time there so far, his single most significant contribution was the moment during a meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses when the Idiot passed him a squiggled note that read: What is the minimum wage these days? Remembering the stupid flush of pride that he had experienced on sliding back the answer causes the sick feeling in his stomach to increase now, as he rises from the bench.

  A runner comes past in a gold-coloured pair of lycra trousers, his large muscular buttocks seizing as he pounds down the towpath. The man starts back toward Westminster, but immediately as he does so the strange, horrifying image enters his head of himself in the same pair of trousers, entering the building and suddenly everybody looking at him – the security guards suppressing their mirth as he passes through the scanners – and the sight of his fat golden arse repeated all around him in the unending glass and mirrors and polished flooring. Suddenly he stops right there on the towpath, looking round to check nobody is nearby, and, with the fruit salad punnet, he scoops up the four small nuggets of dog shit from beside the tree. He ties up the Boots carrier bag around it, continuing alongside the river, and drops the package into the next dustbin he passes.

  Further down the water, Mick is viewing across the way to the power station. One thing that must be admitted: it’s bloody big. When did they close it? Who cares, what does it matter? It doesn’t. Probably the Milk Snatcher but. We don’t want power stations, what we want instead is more apartment buildings – these ones you can see here all along past the bridge, curving swirls of bright blue and green.

  He pulls out the leaflet and turns it over. One thing that’s obvious, looking at the map: these churches are spread miles apart. And, on top of that, the Monday one is the other side of the map from Tuesday, which does not neighbour Wednesday, and so on, and so on. Obvious it’s done on purpose. To make things difficult, for whatever reason. The absurdity of it all. An absurd situation, would ye no agree, Mr Jogger, in your – and let’s be honest here – pretty daft leggings? Fucksake, he needs a drink. The pub just a little way down the road but him sat here with no money on his tail. Cruel. Very cruel.

  It takes him two hours to walk there, and he arrives while it is still light. Maybe that’s how they keep them so far apart. To give the scaffers something to do. Pass the time. The Hallelujah that comes to the door isn’t as friendly as the other one. He’s in fact quite annoyed that Mick’s turned up out the blue without booking his place. He’s not supposed to arrive before seven. He should have phoned ahead. A good one, that. See the thing is I was going to call ahead on the mobile phone but then I was that busy on the line with clients and contractors and all that, I forgot. He doesn’t bother arguing with the guy. No the energy or the pride, so he keeps quiet and the man agrees to book him in, only he has to go away the now and no come back until seven o’clock. He leaves, walks about, wondering how he’s supposed to know when seven o’clock is.

  Shepherd’s pie and a spoon of boiled vegetables. The set-up is different here – it’s a bigger place, and there are small round tables to sit at, but he manages to find one where he’s on his own. He recognizes one or two of the faces. The beans guy is here, sat over the way at a full table, laying it off to some poor ancient scaffer about something or other.

  The Hallelujahs wait until everybody has got food, then they fix out plates for themselves and sit down inamongst the tramps. Mick stares down at his plate, eating quickly, but nobody comes. Afterwards he gets a sleeping bag and finds a space, then sits against the wall next to it, making sure he doesn’t catch eyes with anybody. Some of the scaffers stand together in dirty clusters, talking. Others keep with themselves, avoiding the groups, like he is doing. No. As long as he remains outside of it, eating the food just and accepting the shelter for now, and no talking to any scaffers or any Hallelujahs, then he will stay afloat. Only if he accepts that he is part of this, that he belongs here, will he be done for. Because if he does that, then there’ll be no control over it, and he may as well throw in the towel. Game over.

  A dribbly day, but no too cold. He takes a free paper from a stall he passes, to lay down on the bench. Irrational, maybe, no the sensible man’s choice, but he goes the trek to his usual spot. The night’s church is in the other direction but it doesn’t matter, better anyway to use up the day by walking. He is sat staring at the power station when a young lad, looks like a student, comes and sits in next to him. It isn’t long before he turns and starts talking. Mick keeps quiet, hoping he’ll get the message. He doesn’t. Incredible sight, he is saying, wet day, and all this. Go bloody sit inside well if it’s too wet for you. He has started fiddling about in his rucksack.

  ‘Would you like a muffin?’

  Mick ignores him.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s spare.’ He is holding his muffin out to him. ‘Well, I’ll just leave it here in case you change your mind.’

  The boy stays sitting there. He keeps looking over, Mick can see him doing it out the corner of his eye. After a while, he turns toward the lad, the muffin still there on the bench between them.

  ‘I’ve ate already. I’d take a pound but, get myself a cup of
tea.’

  The boy obvious isn’t too sure about this and he delays a moment, nay doubt thinking – how do I know he isn’t going straight the offie with this? Which is exactly where he intends going with it, but the lad is by now getting out his wallet, and he hands him £1.50.

  He uses the money smartly. £1.29 buys him a decent-size bottle of Polish lager and he saves the rest to call ahead to the church. It runs out after about five seconds, but the guy rings him back.

  The journey is much more pleasurable with a drink inside him. No bevvied, but warmer, more relaxed. In such a state it is easier to ignore all the rub-ye-ups bustling past and eyeballing him along the pavement. Away home to their evenings of curry dinner and telly watching, argle-bargling with the wife. Plenty of scaffers about too: alone in doorways; stood in wee groups; blocking the thoroughfares selling their magazines. He is coming into a more posh area. There are wine drinkers inside a giant café window, flower stalls, well-to-do clothes shops. This one that he passes. A naked mannequin in the window, bald and bare, with the one hand on her hip. The sudden temptation to run in and steal her. Run off down the street with the baldy woman tucked under the arm. How far would he get? How many yards down the pavement before the heavy mob catch up, huckling him down some back alley to put the boot on? No that there are many back alleys this part of town. Nay chance. It’s all boulevards and butchers round here, they Italian ones with cured meats hanging in the display above the olive oils and the giant cheese wheels.

  It is a Catholic church this night, and the space is a side room off the church building itself, the walls above the sleeping mats covered with ornate lanterns and candles, lifelike statues of nuns holding crosses and looking out with serious faces at the scaffers. There are less staying than the previous two nights, but still one or two of the regulars, they ones that know they’re onto a good thing and have got themselves in with the bricks. He ignores them, managing to keep to himself. Eats his food. Drinks his tea. There is a prayer session after dinner, but the Hallelujahs don’t force it. Quite a few take part though, going through with the Bead Rattler, who has been walking about the place in his robes and his rings, for a wee patter with the Big Man. Hard to know how they’re asking him for anything.

  He rolls out his mat and his bag and gets lying down. How quick you get used to things. Settle into a rhythm.

  In the morning after breakfast, one of the Hallelujahs, a woman, approaches him.

  ‘Sleep okay?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  She stands by the tea table while Mick is fixing up his tea and his orange juice. How is it people are always wanting to put the nose in and can’t leave him be?

  ‘It’s Mick, isn’t it? I haven’t met you before. My name’s Jenny.’

  ‘Pleased to meet ye, Jenny,’ and he starts to turn and get leaving back to his place at the table.

  ‘I was wondering – have you had a chance to use the daytime centre at all?’

  ‘I have, aye, thanks.’

  ‘Oh, right. Good. And you know we have caseworkers too, who can help you with accessing services.’ The beans guy is arrived at the table making a tea, listening, a wee smile on him.

  ‘Thanks, Jenny, I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ‘Right, okay.’ She smiles and starts to move off. ‘Have a nice day, Mick.’

  Oh, aye, it’s going to be a belter: away down the boulevard for a new suit, then off to a restaurant with the baldy woman for Guinness and oysters.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Beans is looking at him, still the wee grin. The red woolly hat pulled right down to his eyes.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Ye from Glasgow, well?’

  No use kidding on now he’s been rumbled.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Whereabout?’

  ‘Clydebank.’

  ‘That where ye were born?’

  ‘Aye, Clydebank.’

  He gives a wide smile. One side of his top lip is chappit and bleeding. ‘I’m from Paisley.’ He holds out a giant purple hand. ‘Keith. Ye’re no a religious case, eh?’

  ‘No.’

  Beans turns his eyes for an instant up to the roofbeams. There is a large dark gouge in the stubble under his chin. ‘Thank Christ for that, then. Enough of them about, no think?’

  ‘The Hallelujahs.’

  He lets out a loud lunatic laugh, which makes Jenny and the woman she’s with look round a moment. ‘Aye, the Hallelujahs, you said it, pal, fucking right.’

  He is still chuckling with himself as Mick gets leaving.

  Where do they go to? There’s aye the ones that are sat in the doorways and selling the magazines, but what about the rest of them, where do they go? The women? You never see the women. The nights at the churches, there’s been quite a few of them put up. They get a separate room, or if it’s one of the smaller places they get a plastic barricade wheeled up in between to keep the men off them. The tollie tugboat is on the approach, docking up with its cargo of shite. He watches it turn around on the water, coiling slowly into the wharf. No great mystery but. It’s pretty obvious where most of them go, the men anyway, the male scaffers. They ones that aren’t sat next to a carry-out cup, tapping pedestrians for the price of a bottle, are down the broo office signing on. See but how is he any different? Sponging off the Christians for food and orange juice. Fucksake he eats more than anybody there!

  He doesn’t stop going. He’s there each night for his free meal and his free entertainment, listening to the night terrors erupting through the hall. He has a shapeless awareness that he needs to be doing something, but it’s getting more difficult to hold the thought and do anything with it. The brain is unable to deal with it. The Hallelujahs aren’t but. They keep going on at him about it. Especially the guy Yann. Does he know there’s a laundry and showers at the daytime centre? Has he had any thoughts what he’s going to do when the shelters close at the end of February? He’s going up to Glasgow, he tells him. Going back to see the family. Yann is delighted. That’s good, Mick. That’s very good.

  What will happen to all this lot then? Where will they go? They’re that settled into the routine, some of them. Maybe they are actually in fact secret bloody millionaires and when this all packs up they’re away in their jets to their lochside mansions, and that’s how they’re all so unbothered about it, who knows? Because that’s what they are. Unbothered. It’s true. Rare there is an incident. Sometimes but. Nothing much. The odd squabble a couple of times, arguments over who’s took whose sleeping space, but that’s usually it. It is a while before he sees anything like a proper fight, and when he does, it’s two women. The one of them starts screaming at the other that she’s stole her gloves, and when she denies it and starts walking away, the accuser jumps her from behind and gets clawing at her face. The Hallelujahs are straight in there, breaking them up, wheeling out an extra divider the night.

  Beans reckons he knows the whole back story. He is sat down at the same dinner table laying it off to him.

  ‘She’s had they gloves for years, see. She was gave them as a present by somebody, so ye can see how she’s angry. I’d be angry, somebody lifted my hat. I’d be fucking beeling.’ Mick sits drinking his tea. ‘Know what I think?’ Beans continues. ‘I think it’s no about the gloves. Probably there never was a pair of gloves even. Sometimes it’s like that, know what I mean? Christmas is aye the worst. This place is eggshells then. Depends what like is the family situation, course, but most of these lot are biting the carpets.’

  Christmas. He’s not even noticed that it has came and went. He must have been at the hotel. He tries to mind when it would have been, if there’d been any sign of it, but he can’t think; the whole thing is a fog. Plus as well this great bampot right in his face.

  ‘See me, I’m no staying around much longer.’ He is looking intently across the table at Mick.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Mean, I know this place, close, quite close, beds, kitchens, comfy, ye know, no like this.’ He turns and look
s about behind him a moment. ‘All I want is to go for a crap in peace.’

  He is grinning at his joke. Mick notices there are bits of dandruff on the outside of his hat.

  ‘See how I’m telling ye is because you should go there too, we should both of us go there. Ye can’t stay here.’

  Mick looks away over to where the tables are getting folded back up for the night. The first of the sleeping mats being rolled out onto the floor. He’s right, obviously. The memory then of the pub backyard, the cold humming generator. At least this guy has got something going on upstairs, unlike himself. He’s thinking, at least. Even the headbangers have the march on him these days.

  It rains a couple of days solid. Quiet down by the river during this time, the fast-flowing water foaming and stinking with the downpour. The occasional determined jogger dragging past. It is too wet to stay there. He’ll be sat thinking it isn’t so bad because the bench is partly covered over by a tree, but then a branch will give up under the gathering weight and dump a bucket onto his head. He goes up the coach station. He sits in the bays, drookit and shivering, frightening the passengers. Pneumonia but, it’s good for the handouts. Both days, he taps a pitying face for the price of a can and goes to drink it under the railway bridge, or on the walk over to the night’s church.

  Beans is sat near the end of a long table, on his own. Mick goes over and sits in opposite him.

  ‘Alright?’

  Beans is away with it though, staring down at his untouched chicken and chips.

  ‘What ye said before, mean, I think I might take ye up on the offer.’